Causes and Effects of Ethnic Conflict in Gharbi Mustafa's When

ى گۆڤار زانکۆ بۆ زانستە مرۆڤایەتییەکان بەرگى. 24 ، ژمارە.2، ساڵى 2020 Causes and Effects of Ethnic Conflict in Gharbi Mustafa’s When Mountains Weep ID No.3371 (PP 234 - 242) https://doi.org/10.21271/zjhs.24.2.15 Saman Hussein Omar Dana Hameed Mahmood College of Languages / Salahaddin College of Languages / Sulaimani University University-Erbil [email protected] [email protected] Received: 29/11/2019 Accepted: 20/01/2020 Published:20/04/2020 Abstract This paper examines the causes and effects of ethnic conflict in Gharbi Mustafa’s When Mountains Weep. The novel was published in 2013. It relates the experience of a young man who is from the Duhok province, but is displaced with his family to the city of Mosul. As a young kid, Hamko faces discrimination by the Arabs he is to live with as an outcome of the policies adopted by the regime then. The paper falls into an introduction and two sections. The introduction shows how the act of displacing the Kurds is handled both as a cause and effect of ethnic conflict in the novel. Although this act is perpetrated by the ruling regime of the time, it creates tension and conflict between the major ethnic components in Iraq, Kurds and Arabs. Section one shows how the act of displacement in When Mountains Weep is systematically perpetrated by the regime against the Kurds in Iraq, obviously resulting in discrimination between the Kurds and Arabs; and sometimes leading to the feeling of hatred towards each other. Section two deals with the distinctive features of the Kurdish culture, namely with the Kurdish language and traditions, which shows that the Kurds cannot be forced into assimilation with the Arabic traditions despite being affected by them. The conclusion shows that despite living in the same country, there are many differences between the Kurds and Arabs. It shows that the regimes ruling Iraq have often tried to bring about a demographic change in the Kurdish-inhabited areas through the Arabization process for political reasons. It also shows how the displacement of the Kurds affected the Kurds’ socio-economic conditions. Keywords: Ethnic conflict, Kurds, Arabs, displacement, culture, novel. Introduction Milton J. Esman points out that lack of power balance may lead to ethnic conflict. He maintains, ―when an ethnic group gains control of the state, important economic assets are soon transferred to the members of that community,‖ (Esman 229). In When Mountains Weep (WMW)1, the reader comes across a number of causes and effects of ethnic conflict. This conflict, as Esman stated, is due to the fact that the Arabs of Iraq have been in power since the establishment of the Iraqi state. The Kurds, being a minority, have not only suffered from lack of power-sharing, but have also been severely exposed to attempts of annihilation including the use of chemical gases and mass graves. Examples of this conflict in the novel includes Arabization campaigns leading to forced displacement, denial of cultural rights leading to discrimination based on language and traditional differences between Kurds and Arabs. Sometimes, the causes and effects of the conflict overlap due to the nature of the conflict. Displacement is an example of such overlapping, as it could be the main result of ethnic conflict, and could further inflame such conflict in reaction. Other concepts such as culture represented by language and social traditions could be some of the causes of ethnic conflict when one realizes that differences between the ethnic components of the society are not 1 Henceforth abbreviated as WMW in the paper. 234 Vol.24, No.2, 2020 ى گۆڤار زانکۆ بۆ زانستە مرۆڤایەتییەکان بەرگى. 24 ، ژمارە.2، ساڵى 2020 accepted. Moreover; displacement and cultural differences, being examples of ethnic conflict, show that the characters’ social, psychological and economic conditions are all affected. The displacement of people is a forced movement of people from their place to other places, which leads to a geographic shift in households, and which certainly impacts the socio- economic conditions of the displaced people. It also leads to/ or aggravate racial segregation. The population is forced to leave their homeland to which they are attached, and in which they have the knowledge and opportunity to make a living. Displaced populations often become impoverished (Displacement of people and its effects par.2). In 1970, 300,000 people were reported displaced in Kurdistan as the result of fighting between Kurdish Peshmerga and the government, as well as between the Peshmerga forces themselves. In 1975, when the Kurdish revolution faced a catastrophic blow because of the Algiers Agreement,2 as many as 600,000 were displaced, 250,000 over the border to Iran. The Iraqi government forcibly relocated perhaps 1400 villages and 300,000 people, mainly to 'strategic hamlets' designed to facilitate government containment and control (Dammers 181- 182). There were many phases of Kurdish displacement in the last decades of the twentieth century, which reached its peak during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88). At the end of the war, an increased collaboration started between Iran and Kurdish Peshmerga forces. This was an excuse for the Iraqi regime to pursue its policy displacing people from their homes. The policy did not only include displacement of people, but it also resulted in the killing of nearly 200.000 Kurds and destroying about 4000 Kurdish villages in the Anfal campaigns3. Their inhabitants, over half a million people, were forced to move to new collective settlements away from border or mountain areas, or to detention camps in the south and west of Iraq. Others fled to Iran. ―Many of these people have been displaced more than once since then‖ (Dammers 181-182). Thus, the Kurdish people faced an ethnic cleansing campaign by the powers that ruled Iraq for so many years. In the novel, WMW instances of ethnic conflict and displacement are widely seen impacting the characters’ life. The Kurds are rejected due to their ethnic differences by the community they live side by side. Examples of ethnic conflict arise when the main character in the novel speaks in Kurdish; and other instances are reflected in the behavior of the other ethnic group, the Arabs towards the Kurds. Many a time, they try to show they are superior to the Kurds because the Arabs are the majority. 1. Displacement in When Mountains Weep In WMW, the impacts of displacement are obviously seen in different areas in Kurdistan. Lawrence points to this conflict when he describes what Saddam Hussein adopted as a policy of discrimination, particularly in the Kirkuk province: Saddam Hussein now revealed his true genius – the Art of pitting Iraqis against one another … Saddam ensured the ethnic balance of Kirkuk would tip against the Kurds. Kurds left the city and were no longer allowed to own property and many went through a humiliating process if declaring themselves Arabs, in order to get jobs and buy houses (Lawrence 29) . 2The Algiers Agreement was signed in 1975 in the Algiers, in which ―Iraq agreed to move the maritime boundary between the two countries to the thalweg—conditioned on Iran’s withdrawal of support for the Iraqi Kurds‖, which resulted in the termination of the Kurdish Revolution then. (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Algiers-Agreement) Accessed on November 7, 2019 3 Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were executed during a systematic attempt to exterminate the Kurdish population in Iraq in the Anfal operations in the late 1980s. (https://us.gov.krd/en/issues/anfal-campaign-and-kurdish-genocide/) Accessed on November 7, 2019 235 Vol.24, No.2, 2020 ى گۆڤار زانکۆ بۆ زانستە مرۆڤایەتییەکان بەرگى. 24 ، ژمارە.2، ساڵى 2020 Gharbi Mustafa refers to these actual events of conflict in the novel in a number of incidents, simultaneously showing an overwhelming sense of love of the motherland. The story’s main character has a fresh memory of what happened. Despite its nostalgic nature, the memories sum up some of the very common sufferings the Kurds went through: Amid all the memories that clashed in my head, I heard my mother’s Kurdish lullaby, which echoed through the vast valley.‖ sleep, my son, sleep, in the Arabian sand, away from our father’s land. Sleep, my son, sleep. You may survive to see the day. To our sweet home, we find the way. Smile at your mommy, do not feel sad. Tomorrow you will grow into a lad. And ask for your missing dad. Lull, my darling, lull. Tomorrow you will grow into a man in the mountains of Kurdistan, in a nation without a homeland. (WMW 3-4) The image of the Kurdish mother is both literally and symbolically significant. While it refers to the sufferings mothers or women generally went through due to displacement campaigns, it symbolically refers to the call of the homeland. Mustafa points out how common it was for children to lose their fathers. In fact, the fathers were not only the ones who gave their lives; women and children had a big share of the agonies too. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) presented a survey of the displaced people in Iraq during the 1980s. The survey shows that the eight years of the Iraq-Iran war in 1980 to 1988 brought a new phase of Saddam Hussein’s power to consolidate his rule in Iraq (IDMC). During the Iraq-Iran war, many other offensives were carried out by Saddam’s military forces against the Kurds. Gharbi Mustafa relates how the conditions of the Kurdish displaced families were during the time. The displacement deepened the conflict between Arabs and Kurds.

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